Perkiomen Valley to pilot three college-and-career platforms as district seeks Naviance replacement

Perkiomen Valley School District officials said the district will run short trials of three college-and-career platforms — SmartFutures, SchoolLinks and Xello — beginning March 11 and running into early June so middle- and high-school counselors can evaluate alternatives to the district’s current Naviance platform.

District supervisor of wellness Erin Dreisbach said counselors requested the assessment because Naviance “is no longer meeting the needs of our counselors and our students” for college planning, career exploration and compliance with Chapter 3-39 career education requirements. The trial will use six selected lessons per building and include professional learning supplied by the vendors.

The pilot is free to the district; each vendor will provide trial access and support. Counselors said the new platforms may offer features Naviance lacks: repeated inventories to allow year-to-year comparison, better portfolio support, improved college-search tools, mobile access and, in some cases, lifetime student accounts. Kate Kelly, the high school career counselor, described practical problems with Naviance: the site is “not as user friendly,” teachers sometimes miss a step when submitting recommendations, and inventories can only be completed once unless manually reset. Amanda Conlin, a high school counselor, added that Naviance data often must be tracked outside the platform in Google forms and spreadsheets, increasing counselor workload.

District staff reported price estimates they had obtained: Naviance approximately $15,000 annually; SmartFutures about $14,000; Xello about $18,000; and SchoolLinks about $28,000. Erin Dreisbach said cost spans are modest relative to the district budget and that migration support differs by vendor; SchoolLinks representatives said they can bulk-upload legacy data and provide customer support during peak counseling periods. District technology staff member Karthik was identified as coordinating data migration work with vendors.

Board members and administrators discussed rollout details. The district intends to pilot one platform at a time for roughly three weeks each, gather counselor and student feedback using a rubric, then present a recommendation to the board. Board members asked for cost comparisons to be included in the public minutes and for clarification about language translation: SchoolLinks was noted as offering translation into many languages, and staff said they would verify whether answers entered by families are translated back into English for counselor review. Dreisbach also noted SchoolLinks and other vendors advertise lifetime access for student accounts, whereas Naviance currently provides six months of post‑graduation access.

No purchase decision was finalized at the meeting. Staff requested board approval to run the pilots; administrators said pilots will be placed on the district’s upcoming data-presentation agenda for formal approval and recommendation to the board.

Next steps: pilots to be run in sequence starting in March if the board adds the pilots to the presentation agenda; vendors will provide professional learning and migration support; counselors will score platforms and return a recommendation to the board for a June decision.